Sequester show hits key states

The Senate’s leading defense hawks are preparing to launch a barnstorming trip to battleground states so they can build support for rolling back billions of dollars in budget cuts set to hit the Pentagon early next year. The idea: Rile up military constituencies in states like Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire to intensify pressure on President Barack Obama and wayward lawmakers into cutting a pre-election deal to soften the blow on defense programs.

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The new pressure campaign, under development by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), comes at a crucial moment on Capitol Hill, as senators are trying to near an agreement before the August recess on overhauling the first year of cuts to defense and domestic programs, worth roughly $109 billion. And it comes as Obama is neck and neck with Mitt Romney in these same swing states where potential job losses resulting from the automatic cuts could have a profound effect on the November elections.

“We need to bring home the message here of the devastating consequences of sequestration to industries, to people, to the military,” McCain told POLITICO.

It’s also a delicate task. McCain and Graham are facing internal GOP divisions and Democratic resistance over exactly how to replace the defense spending cuts. Most significantly, there’s no GOP consensus on whether new revenues should be part of any agreement, something demanded by Democratic leaders and the White House but opposed by Romney and many congressional conservatives.

“This is not a choice between tax increases [and] funding national defense,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, whose home state of Florida could be a pit stop on the Graham-McCain roadshow. “This is a choice about undoing what was a very bad decision to begin with.”

But it’s not that simple, with the issue tied into a major tax and spending fight looming over Congress, including the expiring Bush-era tax rates that Democrats refuse to extend for high earners.

Graham has become one of the more vocal proponents of including revenues in a deal, saying closing some tax deductions and raising certain federal fees, including ones proposed by the Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction plan, could be used to replace the so-called defense sequester. He wouldn’t get into specifics since there’s no consensus yet.

“Nobody’s going to raise tax rates,” said Graham, who recently spoke with Vice President Joe Biden about whether more Republicans would be open to revenues in a deal. “But we’d use the revenue component in Bowles-Simpson and the bulk of the money would be from cutting spending.”

McCain and Graham are calling for reinforcements on their possible road trip, reaching out to some of their closest allies like Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), hoping to hit military installations in key swing states starting as early as next week. McCain said Monday more details would be announced later this week.

Readers' Comments (38)

Why weren't these two negotiating this last year instead of letting our credit rating fall and costing even more interest money. They are the party that created this mess and they have nothing to offer short of turning us into North Korea with a powerful military and a slave-like general population.

I'm also beginning to question Mc Cain's sexuality-he and Lindsay are such a big item together-he seems to be seeing alot more of Lindsay than Cindy.

It is with considerable irony that Senator Kyle calls out for ways to save the country from the effects of the sequestration, without bothering to mention that he was among those who demanded the sequestration in the first place as a way to down the United States and thwart programs advocated by Obama. Then again, life must be a lot easier to bear when you don't have to feel compelled to make any factual statements.

When is Grah up for reelection? I'm guessing not soon. As we know, tax raising or even being willing to compromise with the Democrats on anything means an automatic tea bagging from the further right. His fellow Confederate senator, and the man who cost the GOP control of the Senate in 2010, DeMint will likely be the first to throw him overboard. One would have to imagine in S.C. The bagger candidate there would make the Sharron Angles and Christine O'Donnell's of the world look like Ted Kennedy incarnate. Clearly McCain can be a 'maverick' again, as he went far right in 2010 to fend off the tea bag attempt from Hayworthless. He never would have made that speech defending a Muslim in 2010.

Lieberman has to join the road show for it to be complete: The Three Warmongering Stooges.

Democrats must not only demand new revenues to offset the cuts, they must demand that at least one dollar of new revenues goes to offset social services cuts for every dollar that goes to offset defense cuts. The Defense Department is bloated and needs to be put on a severe diet. Indeed, Democrats should demand two dollars for every defense dollar. Social services, given the hard times more Americans suffer due to the Republican Great Recession under Bush/Cheney, need to be beefed up. Studies show more jobs will be lost in the social services sector from sequestration than in the defense sector.

Republicans are such frauds. They bang on about how only the private sector can create jobs and how we need to cut government spending sharply, but when it comes to financing the agents of death and destruction, Republicans become Democrats: "We can't afford the spending cuts right now! It will cost jobs we can't afford to lose! It will hurt economic growth! We need that government money!"

Politicians on both sides are terrified of sequestration. Defense firms are going to have to begin notifying employees of layoffs before the November election and that is going to hurt incumbents from both parties.

Both parties lack the will to restrain government growth, the deal that caused sequestration was a 1.2 trillion reduction in growth over 10 years, the budget would still grow, just not as much. Unfortunately, government employees and government contractors think a slight decrease in budget growth is austerity.

My bet is that both parties cave on sequestration and on the fiscal cliff created by expiration of the payroll tax cut and Obama extension to the bush tax cuts.

The stimulus cost 700+ billion and produced about 2.5 million jobs, it came out to 278K per job

Sucking money out of the productive private sector for government waste is not the way to produce jobs. Money spent on defense is spent to secure the country, it is not a jobs program. Big government liberals will never understand that until we go the way of Greece or Spain.

Republicans are willing to do anything to maintain the corporate welfare state for their military contractors - lie - about their intentions, cheat - because they can't keep their word, and steal - money from working Americans' programs.

Politico: “This is not a choice between tax increases [and] funding national defense,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, whose home state of Florida could be a pit stop on the Graham-McCain roadshow. “This is a choice about undoing what was a very bad decision to begin with.”

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[T]he number two Republican in the House, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, said that his party would press ahead with its plans for immediate cuts in spending, including in the defense budget. “Every dollar should be on the table,” he said.

In tackling such cuts, he said, “every dollar should be on the table,” including defense, whose budgets Republicans have historically safeguarded.

“No one can defend the expenditure of every dollar and cent over at the Pentagon,” he said. “And we’ve got to be very serious to make sure that they are doing more with less as well.”

“We need to bring home the message here of the devastating consequences of sequestration to industries, to people, to the military,” McCain told POLITICO.

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Billions can be saved in US defense budget - McCain

Nov 15th, 2010

WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said billions of dollars could be saved from the U.S. defense budget by cutting lawmakers' pet projects, known as earmarks, and fixing troubled arms programs.

McCain told a foreign policy forum on Monday that he is confident Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be able to cut $100 billion from the defense budget over the next five years to fund personnel costs and keep weapons programs on track.

He cited several big arms programs that were over budget and behind schedule, saying they presented further opportunities to save money.

McCain told an event hosted by the Foreign Policy Initiative." I'm not sure that we could say that everything in defense is sacrosanct while the rest of these cuts in education and social programs, etcetera, are taking place."

Sen. Marco Rubio: “This is a choice about undoing what was a very bad decision to begin with.”

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Mr. [Rand] Paul emphas wasteful military spending that lines the pockets of military contractors rather than protecting the country. A bipartisan task force of military experts has identified cuts that would eventually equal almost 1 percent of G.D.P.

Gee, I'm surprised that McCain mentioned that this is bad for people. I wonder if it's because it will cost jobs or if the people inclusion wasn't really important to him. And for Rubio saying it was a bad idea to start with, why did he vote for it? These people are self-serving and totally useless to the constituents. They do more harm than good.